The blog contains articles by the author which appear in various newspapers in Kashmir and are also available on the website: www.kashmirfirst.com

Wednesday, March 7, 2018

Preparing for Mahabharata’s Last Battle!

(The continuous firing on
the Line of Control and the Indo-Pak border looks ominous and could spiral out
of control with disastrous consequences!)

Recently, there have been numerous statements from
leaders as well as defence services officers of the two neighbouring countries
in the Indian sub-continent about the escalating situation on the border. Saner
people have been repeatedly emphasizing that the spiraling situation on the
border could blow up into a full-fledged war which would mean virtual
annihilation of the sub-continent. A real Armageddon! Surely the enmity has not
reached such a level that it should blow out the entire sub-continent. Hopefully,
there are still saner people on the two sides? Politicians on both the sides
seem to be deriving political mileage for elections and control of opposition
in the two countries. The BJP from the very start has been going on the
religious turf. From the first day after taking over the government in Delhi
they have mounted a sustained campaign for converting India into a Hindu
Rashtra. Even though their election campaign spoke more of development (Vikas)
yet on taking over they forgot about it. In fact, they have miserably failed to
keep their promises to the teeming millions starving under the poverty line.

Having totally failed on the economic front,
they are now once again reverting to religious fanaticism. They are in a way
creating a religious frenzy to virtually fight the next election. Vikas does
not sell now! They can as usual use the religion as the opium of the poor!
However, by doing so, inadvertently they may be preparing for the last battle
of Mahabharata at Kurukshetra! Mahabharata
is one of the two famous Indian National epics. It was written from 540 to 300
B.C. by Sage Vyasa. It relates the legends of the Bharatas, a Vedic Aryan
group.

Bharat Bhushan, a senior Delhi based journalist
has written an article in Asian Age, “Modi playing with fire, driving J & K
to despair”. According to him, “… having failed to deliver on the
economic front, given the mess created by demonetisation and the hasty
implementation of the Goods and Services Tax, increasing agrarian distress and
rising unemployment, Mr Modi needed to rejig the nationalist narrative to
maintain and expand the structure of his communalised politics. One of the
tropes in this reinvented nationalism is to paint Pakistan as the source of all
Indian woes in the Kashmir Valley. A supine mainstream media played the
cheerleader in creating a nationalist paranoia to suit Mr Modi’s political ends”.

The
ethos of the real India of ancient times as perceived by Guru Dev Tagore and
Dr. Iqbal cannot be brought back by physically merging the broken away parts
again into Akhand Bharat. The India of the ancient times can be redeemed only
by making the artificial borders separating these countries irrelevant. If this
Hindu-Muslim divide had not taken place and India had remained as one united
country, it would not only have been a real super power but would have been one
of the best welfare states for its citizens. They can still remain united by
adopting the European Union model. If, after the most destructive world war,
Europe can virtually unite as one country, why cannot India, Pakistan and
Bangladesh do the same?

One
is reminded of the battle of Kurukshetra in Mahabharata. It would be
interesting to recapitulate what some people say about the Mahabharata’s last
battle. Mathilda’s
Weird Web Blog has translations of some of the verses which look scary because
of some resemblance to a few modern weapons like the nukes, rockets and the
lasers! “Gurkha, flying a swift and powerful
vimana [fast aircraft], hurled a single projectile [rocket] charged with the
power of the Universe [nuclear device].An incandescent column of smoke and flame, as bright as
ten thousand suns, rose with all its splendour.It was an unknown weapon, an iron thunderbolt, a gigantic
messenger of death, which reduced to ashes the entire race of the Vrishnis and
the Andhakas”. “The corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable. Hair and
nails fell out; Pottery broke without apparent cause, and the birds turned
white.…After a few hours all foodstuffs were infected……to escape from this fire
the soldiers threw themselves in streams to wash themselves and their equipment”

Kongari
Mahalakshami a computer scientist writes in Quora on the subject. She is
debating whether nuclear weapons were really used in the Mahabharata War. “The
concept of Astra (Missile) and Dhanush (Launchers) emerged from there. Astra was a
super-natural hand-carried weapon blessed by a specific deity. Astras like
Brahmashira, Brahmasthra, Pasupatasthra, Vaishnavasthra, Narayana Astra,
Agneyasthra, Vayavasthra, Nagasthra, Vajrasthra, Varunasthra etc. were used in
Mahabharata along with positive indications of the use of Nuclear weapons (atom
bomb) , otherwise how could the war cause the death of around 1.5billion people in a matter of 18 days”.

Even
Oppenheimer, the father of the modern Atom Bomb has said about the possibility
of the use of nuclear weapons mentioned in Mahabharata. “No, I’m not totally mad”. Oppenheimer
thought it may have happened. He was very familiar with the ancient Hindu texts.
When asked if his was the first ever detonation of a nuclear bomb, he
said. ‘Yes, in modern times’. Keeping in view all these references one
feels scary that the Hindutva frenzy being raised for a war with Pakistan, a
Dharam Yudh may be a repeat of the war in the ancient times which had resulted
in total destruction.

If both the countries
fail to check the religious extremists from taking over, one never knows these
western powers may even encourage and allow a small nuclear exchange as a
lesson for other similarly disposed countries! Recently a columnist had warned
about the possibility of the western countries preparing for a nuclear exchange
somewhere in Central Asia. Another possibility could be the Indian
sub-continent. Mahabharata mentions Kal Yug, which is already here. India and
Pakistan have become Pandvas and Korvas and Kashmir is the Drupadi who has been
disrobed umpteen times! Ultimately, this tussle may end in a nuclear exchange
which would definitely be the last battle of Kurukshetra thereby ending the
whole epic of Mahabharata of the present times! Incidentally, the
Kurukshetra of ancient times is the Haryana and Rajasthan of these days which
has been usually the main battle ground for recent Indo-Pak wars!